Explore the origins of Scope. Our multi-part blog series reveals the development of the digital Standard for logistics. All chapters at glance:
The aforementioned XMLHttpRequest, developed by Microsoft, is a JavaScript programming interface designed for data transfer via the well-known HTTP protocol. It first became available with Internet Explorer 5. Its impact on individual web pages has long since become part of internet history. But it was this innovation that made it possible to create field-oriented applications in a browser at all.
Using these technologies, Christian Riege and his team built a prototype that worked surprisingly well – at least in theory. In practice, however, the Explorer consumed more memory than any computer could comfortably handle and needed to be restarted every 15 minutes. Additionally, EJB version 1.1 was clunky, draining as much patience as it did time. The open-source implementation, JBoss, was free and functional but still left much to be desired. While the prototype demonstrated that technologies like these worked for applications like Google and eBay, they fell short for the kind of logistics software with a graphical client that the team envisioned.
EJB 2.0 offered a glimmer of hope, promising significant improvements. Sticking with EJB also meant staying within the Java ecosystem, which necessitated Java Swing for a graphical client. While Java Swing was functional, the resulting application was aesthetically unappealing, and programming with Swing was an arduous process.
By 2002, the attempt to develop a successor to ProCarS had only consumed time and drained financial resources. It seemed like the only thing that had really progressed was the creation of a bottomless money pit – or so it appeared.
That summer, Christian Riege encountered Karsten Lentzsch of JGoodies Software GmbH in an online newsgroup (remember those countless legendary newsgroups, like alt.binaries.whatever?). Lentzsch had been designing, creating, and implementing graphical user interfaces since his youth. In the Java world, he was – and still is – considered one of the leading experts in design, usability, and user experience. He was the perfect partner to improve the aesthetics of Java Swing applications.
This collaboration bore fruit, making Java Swing applications more attractive – a contribution that would later play a significant role in Scope’s development. However, as Christian Riege would later discover, not all collaborations would prove so fruitful.